PS3 Fanboy

Considering the size of this behemoth, weighing in at 15 pounds, we wouldn't really call it a laptop. Nevertheless, inspired by Ben Heck's PS3 laptop, another successful attempt at fitting the insides of a PS3 into a portable enclosure has surfaced. Specs are as follows:

• 80GB SKU with 320GB HDD
• 17" 720p HDTV LCD Monitor
• Keyboard
• Built-in speakers with headphone jack
• Custom cooling (SilenX fans)
• Size: 16" x 10.5" x 4" (when closed)
• Weight: 15 pounds

With the success of this 3-month project, the modder known as Pirate plans to create a slimmer version in the future. Check it out in action after the jump.

[Via Engadget -- thanks, jimb!]

Emulating operating systems is never really a good idea. Yet, mopx0 has decided to give it a try with Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista. To say it runs slow would be an understatement, as booting the resource-heavy OS takes 25 minutes on the system. To run Notepad emulated on the PS3 via Linux takes a whopping 12 minutes. It's not really practical, but shows the incredible dedication the hacking community has when tackling the strangest of projects.

If for some crazy reason you want to give it a try, read here.

[Via Engadget]

The official US websites for SingStar Pop and God of War have been hacked, according to IT company Sophos. When visitors clicked onto the PlayStation site, they may have been greeted by a pop-up ad that claims viruses have been found on their computer. The scare tactic tries to trick people into buying anti-spyware software, and requires a visitor's credit card number.

According to Sophos, the hack was implemented through a "SQL injection attack" and according to the company, "the website is still infected." However, personal visits to the PlayStation sites on our browser (Firefox 3) have not turned up anything suspicious.

[Via Next-Gen]

It looks like the PS3 has just gotten its own Hello World greeting courtesy of Dragula96, a well-known PSP hacker. According to Dragula96, he recently discovered an exploit in the official 2.20 firmware and was able to put up his own Hello World proof of concept. Currently, he's not sharing how he did it; he's still doing some tests and working on running a simple game like Pong.

The hacker noted that the systems he used for his experiment had no hardware modifications. The exploit was up and running on both 40 and 60 gig retail models -- not test PS3s.

In light of this, we know that anti-hacking/piracy has been a Sony strong suit when it comes to the PS3. We wonder if we'll be seeing more hacks to come, or will the big S put a stop to things and quickly retaliate with a new firmware update.

[Thanks Craig!]

Where is the PS3 homebrew scene? Considering how active the PSP scene, one would think that Sony's other console would get the same kind of attention from hackers. It's not that people aren't trying -- rather, it appears that Sony has learned from their mistakes with the PSP.

PSP was rather insecure from the start. A primer from "nikkelitous" explains that "the PSP didn't have any security protections in the first version: Thats right! It essentially ran anything that you put on it." In spite of Sony's continued attempts at fixing PSP security through firmware revisions, the damage has already been done. "The PSP now has a very powerful security system, but like the Greeks, we had people inside. Once a system is hacked and understood, very little can be used to continue to protect it."

Not only has Sony made the PS3 much more secure, but its use of Blu-ray makes it significantly more difficult to hack. "It's not using a DVD drive it's using a custom Blu-ray drive, we can't simply copy the disks, and we don't know enough about the firmware on the drive to accomplish a 'debug mode' even if it's on there." Of course, all of these hindrances aren't stopping the hacking community. They're going to keep on trying, and will probably one day succeed. However, it's clear that this time around, Sony isn't going to be taken off-guard.

[Update: This will only work on test PS3 systems. This will NOT work on retail systems. Sorry for the confusion.]

Yup, you heard it right: hackers have discovered a way to run retail PS3 games off the PS3's internal HDD and off external USB HDDs. While this is quite a neat trick, it might not be all that useful considering how much data is stored on a single layered Blu-ray disc -- about 25 gigabytes. That precious HDD space will probably end up being devoured in no time.

More tech-savvy gamers out there who want to know more about this development can go check out the tech mumbo-jumbo here. We're pretty sure this high-level jargon will scare away most. What countermeasures can Sony take to ensure this doesn't become an even larger problem? Rampant piracy has always cast its dark shadow over the PSP ... will the PS3 be next? Let's hope not.

[Via Maxconsole]